President Trump’s top budget official, Russell Vought, has been tapped to take over the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency, where the Project 2025 architect will continue slashing the federal government.
The Trump administration has reportedly tasked its top budget official with resuming billionaire Elon Musk’s role in leading efforts for the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency.
Already a silent Musk partner, Russell Vought, a Project 2025 architect who serves as Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, is expected to push a new 2025 budget through Congress that calls for a major restructuring of funds and federal workers, The Wall Street Journal reports. Vought, a conservative budgeting expert, has been working closely with Musk since Trump took office, with insiders describing their secret relationship to POLITICO as an optimal “insider-outsider” alliance to carry out federal austerity measures.
Among Vought’s top priorities appears to be to slickly maneuver billions more into the U.S. defense budget, which is already the highest in the world at $890 billion, to the ire of the Congressional Democratic minority.
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The appointment will likely exacerbate concerns among Democrats and the greater anti-Trump coalition over the administration following through with the intentions of Project 2025, a 900-page conservative policy agenda to consolidate executive power laid out by The Heritage Foundation, a far-right think tank.
Trump repeatedly denied having any ties to Project 2025 during the presidential campaign, though critics questioned his claims given his team’s personal connections to its creators.
While the exact details and dynamics of the decision are unclear, the move signals Musk’s retreat to his businesses, which have suffered as a result of his role in the Trump administration.
President Trump hinted that Musk might step down during his first cabinet meeting, where Vought had been present, saying to the Tesla CEO, “You know you’re invited to stay as long as you want. At some point, I guess he wants to get back home to his cars.”
In his capacity as leader of DOGE, Musk carried out extremely unpopular policies that resulted in hundreds of thousands of federal workers being laid off or fired, similar to his overhauling of Twitter, now X, in 2022, sparking nationwide protests.
His actions were particularly suspect to critics who noted that Musk, himself, is one of the U.S. federal government’s top-paid contractors, posing concerns about his business conflicts of interest.
Musk has raked in at least $38 billion through his business ventures, primarily SpaceX, that contributes to his infinite net worth, currently estimated at $406.1 billion per Forbes, which has helped the tech tycoon become the richest man on the planet.
Adding salt to the wound, while putting millions of livelihoods at the sacrificial altar of Trump’s agenda, Musk had reportedly scored new contracts while continuing to negotiate others.
Subsequently, the Silicon Valley star saw his popularity, as well as Tesla sales and stocks, plummet, as Tesla cars and outposts around the world have been victims of vandalism, which the White House has condemned.
